Talking face to face with the chap who does nothing but build and fix computers (and will build yours) simply won't happen if you go to any of those places; more likely that their sales staff will be trying to sell you what the manager tells them to shift this month! Aren't Currys and PC World the same company?

This is why I recommended finding a small specialist outlet.

Pc world and Curry’s are one and the same, I also found them expensive and aftercare poor, John Lewis had bad experiences with them so won’t. Touch them with a barge pole.

Dells I had were built with Dell motherboards that meant the PC wasn’t updatable as the boards were mounted differently to every other manufacturers, and the power supply was different connector wise. they also bought out Alienware and in my opinion ruined the product. Look good on paper and externally, but internally and performance wise not so good.

Scan are I believe suppliers to the Crown
https://www.scan.co.uk/info/presszon...rcial-services

I would also recommend ChillBlast.

Mine is getting on a bit now, but when I replace it I will use them again.

No hard sales from them, and their Help people know what they are doing.

I would also recommend finding a local one man/woman band who can "fix" stuff. I have never had a problem with the Chillblast machine, but having someone who knows how to fix stuff is better than speaking to a sales person at Dixons!

I would agree but I have been unlucky with two "specialist computer expert" corner shops. The first could not revive a laptop after I had stupidly accidentally deleted the HDD driver, (yes, I know). I simply down-loaded a generic HDD driver onto a floppy and got the machine going again.

The second guy claimed he was a software expert and had worked on Government computer systems, but he could not revive another machine that had also lost contact with its HDD, (yes, really, I know). He kept my machine for literally months, but could not fix it and was no use at all. But luckily the good folk on the Pprune computer forum helped me there. (And it was a very very simple fix as it happened, involving only about four clicks of the mouse, so very surprised that the computer "expert" could not suss it).

These guys were brilliant. Despite the Apple adverts, it's aeons of PC expertise inside and no one can beat that name or street address.:}

https://www.thecomputershopsurrey.co.uk/ Website is half-baked, that does not mean a thing. I learned the hard way (auto, wash machines, iPad screens) that businesses with a flashy and honestly good online presence can easily survive while providing poor results priced triple above what's the normal value. Guess it's the influx of new visitors who bring the cash.

Sloppy web can be a sign they have enough returning customers to take care of if it's a long-running establishment. Like the above, no-fix-no-pay ain't a shortcut to the client's wallet.

ChillBlast - for the same reasons as AO in #23 above.

IN my working days I built all the desktops and bought Dell servers. The reason for building the desktops was so that I knew exactly what bits were inside so that in the event if a problem I knew what to chuck in the rucksack.
Dell servers can be specified to be very good although by the time you've specced what you want, they're not cheap.
These days I tend to buy the odd thing that I buy now from Novetech. When you call them you get to speak to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
If you're calling from your normal number whoever answers can see exactly what you've bought of them before.
Good firm to deal with.

So what did you decide to do?